I knew I should have edited first. My handler #3 was Lucy Doll. Not "Linda." 0h, Lucy, Lucy who lent her beautiful water pitcher for my speech and who guided me in my high heels over the bumps in the … [Read more...]
A Summa Cum Laude Literary Festival
Last weekend I was the keynote speaker at the North Carolina Mountains Literary Festival in Burnsville, N.C. 2018 was the festival's thirteenth year. Each year has a theme, and this year's theme … [Read more...]
The Facists and the Flee-ers, April 30, 2018
This was begun on April 21, 2018, the eve of Robert Starer's death seventeen years ago. Each year, the countdown begins: the last meal together (cheeseburgers), his final day of composing music (he … [Read more...]
Easter Ghosts
Today is March 31, 2018, Holy Saturday in the Church calendar. Today is the beginning of Passover in the Jewish calendar. Scrooge met up with his Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas … [Read more...]
A Novelist Prepares Her Scene – February 23, 2018
This is a scene that comes early in my new novel (title still secret.) While writing that early part I had not yet imagined this scene. But now, a year later, while writing an era further along in … [Read more...]
Social Security Meditations
Today is February 14, 2018. It is Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day and my father's birthday. I can no longer give up drinking for Lent, having foresworn it forever nine years ago, so am mulling … [Read more...]
Shutdown and Awful Teachers, January 20,2018
Today is the 46th anniversary of my grandmother Edna Rogers Krahenbuhl's death in Asheville, the 32nd anniversary of my cat Gingie's death in Woodstock, and the first anniversary of My Awful … [Read more...]
“Drinking” – installment #3, London
It is January 12, 2018. Today the U.S. Embassy in London, both the soon to be opened new one and the one in Grosvenor Square where I worked during the 1960's, is in the news because our president … [Read more...]
“Drinking” – second installment
Today is January 8, 2018. It would be Robert's 94th birthday. I was signing books in Malaprops Bookstore in Asheville, and I looked up and saw a white-haired man smiling down at me. I should mention … [Read more...]
January 6, 2018, “Drinking.”
For me, it began the summer I turned 11, and ended sixty-one years later when, going on 73, I woke up disgusted with myself and wrote in my journal: "Please help me, I am going straight to Hell." The … [Read more...]